


Tales From After (And During) Their Time On Pandora (And Off It, Too.)

by CescaLR



Category: Borderlands (Video Games), Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-30 15:31:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13954584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CescaLR/pseuds/CescaLR
Summary: What happened after, and what happened before///The time jump was jarring, and the ending was... odd. It'd be fun to have a look at what might've happened before and after the final battle, before the endgame, and after the vault.





	1. Chapter One: The End Of The Beginning, And The Beginning Of The End.

"That was.... anticlimactic."

"Speak for yourself," Fiona heard - Rhys' words were muffled sounding, and Fiona suddenly realized that they weren't in the vault anymore. 

"Oh." She said. Rhys groaned in what Fiona assumed to be agreement, as Fiona took stock of their surroundings.

Right. Fiona went over to Rhys, and deliberated for a moment before sighing and offering a hand. 

Rhys glanced at it then took it, offered a thanks in response as she helped him up. 

"How come you end up standing all - not on the floor, and I slam my head into some... monster rock remains?" Rhys grumbled (whined, really, but Fiona wouldn't say that to his face.

Well. Actually...)

(It would depend on her mood.)

"So the treasures' gone." Fiona tells him because honestly, that's the most important thing here, not Rhys' little bump on his surprisingly sturdy noggin'. 

You'd have thought he'd gotten a concussion by now, but no. Not one. Strange, really. 

(What with all the falling on his head, and all that.)

"Oh." It's Rhys' turn to say, then take in his surroundings. "That's... not cool," He frowned. 

"Yeah," Fiona said.

"Oh, no, wait it's over there." Rhys pointed, then walked over to where he'd gestured to.

... A rock? 

Oh, wait. Echo-eye. Right. 

Fiona followed, then helped him shift the rock (neither of them is very strong, though Rhys' metal arm helps after he remembers to use it - really the guy needs to learn to, after this many years he should have already, she has no idea how this idiot's survived three years out here) and behind some of it lies the loot.

"Nice," Rhys says, as he scans what's in there, eye glowing orange instead of its old blue.

"New cybernetics?" Fiona asks.

"Yeah," Rhys said. "... Needed an upgrade."

Fiona nods and leaves it at that. 

* * *

 Well, Rhys is glad she didn't question further, quite honestly. Because - well, yeah, it needed an upgrade, partially because the last lot had been a prototype and also he'd ripped it all out of his various places.

Temple, eye, and shoulder-joint, respectively.

Now that... had been painful. But anything to get rid of Jack from his head was something Rhys was willing to do, after everything Jack had done. Also, the trying to strangle him with his own arm thing, that wasn't pleasant. 

Rhys glanced through the loot and whistled, impressed.

"Never seen this much valuable stuff in one place," Fiona says, awed. She reaches out and picks up something - just some old form of cash, from what he can tell, yet as soon as she picks it up it becomes a fair few dollars. 

"Oh, nice," Fiona says, reaches out and takes some more. Each seems to net a pretty penny, from what he can see - there's got to be millions in here, maybe more. 

"This... is crazy," Rhys says, decidedly, before picking up a strange looking object. 

"Heya, Cupcake!" He hears and nearly drops it. Fiona stares at the object and says reflexively "Scooter?" Which... doesn't make much sense, but okay. 

"That's... definitely not Scooter," Rhys says, slowly. 

"Damn right it's not 'Scooter', Sunshine."

Ugh.  _Vasquez._ Bastard. 

Fiona wrinkles her nose. "Well, now it's that guy... Finch, I think." She says. Fiona looks... a little pale, but less pale than when she thought it had been Scooter. 

"You did this to us." Rhys yelps and nearly drops it, but Fiona catches the device deftly before it can fall among the other bits of treasure. 

That was... a lot of voices. Wow. Hah.  _A lot._

"Okay, don't know why this is threatening me as Gortys, but we'll just..." Fiona drops it into the chest. "Because that's definitely not her, she's over there -" Fiona points to where LB and Gortys are hanging out, chatting about... whatever robots chat about. Oil recipes... Rhys' previous attempts at tie-wearing... do Robots go on dates? Rhys immediately shuts down that line of thought before it can start.

"Right." Rhys agrees, perhaps a little too late judging by Fiona's expression. 

"..." Fiona looks like she might've been about to say something, but decided not to. "Let's make sure the others don't find that, yeah?"

"Can't make sure of that," Rhys says. "I mean, they're gonna wanna have a look, right?"

"One of us takes it then," Fiona says. "And destroys it."

"... what even is it?" Rhys wonders, before reaching out.

Fiona slaps his hand away and picks the object up. It was Rhys' metal hand, so it didn't exactly hurt per-say, but Rhys still mimes rubbing where she smacked. "I'll take it," Fiona says, challenging. "I'm, at the very least, not going to tinker with it."

Rhys gives her that. 

* * *

 Fiona figured she was good enough at pretending she was one hundred percent dandy to fool Rhys, or that Rhys at the very least knew her well enough to not say anything. 

Fiona pocketed the strange, cruel machine and went back to her looting - now it wasn't in her hand, it didn't seem to have anything else to say to her.

Good. She didn't need dead voices blaming her  _for shit._

Especially when one of them wasn't even dead. Seriously, come on!

Regardless, she kept looking. Found some more bullets - always handy - something that looked very much like a gun Sasha would love to get her hands on; one of those original, one of a kind types she keeps on gushing about - and a shed load more money. 

She could buy a new hat with this. To be honest, she missed her fancy gear from a few years back. 

"I could get used to this," Fiona says, admiringly, as she pilfers object after object, bit of cash after bit of cash. 

"Think we all could," Rhys says. "Though I've had my odds-defying, overly-dangerous, life-risking adventure quota filled for... at least the month," He smiles, and Fiona shakes her head.

"Low tolerance, there, considering," She teases.

"Considering, I think that's a pretty  _high_ tolerance," He protests, and Fiona smiles, slightly. "I'm gonna go get the others," She says. 

"And I'll keep scanning," Rhys says. Fiona nods and departs off to find the rest of their rag-tag little group. 

* * *

* * *

 When Rhys came to, he was still in the burned down wreckage of the Helios space station.

So. Bandits hadn't gotten his unconscious self, then. Point one to Rhys.

Rhys groaned as he pulled himself to standing, but despite everything - despite the levels of pain he was currently in, despite what he'd just been through, despite them  _leaving without him,_ he's - he's all good!

 _Ow._ Maybe - mostly good. Rhys could do with some water. Rhys knows finding any would be - wow, a complete long shot in this vast desert, so he figured he's probably screwed, but going looking... probably isn't too bad an idea. 

Probably. 

Rhys, with some effort, clambered through some more of the wreckage.

Okay, so he's not at the main Helios crash site, which is rather lucky, considering everything, but that does mean that he's... well, he's smack dab in the middle of nowhere.

But - But! Jack's electronics were still working, at least when Rhys was last conscious - working enough to jam jack right back into his implant - which,  _great,_ now Rhys is without everything that made him even  _slightly_ competent at surviving Pandora; his arm, his implants, and that stun baton - but... that's for later. Rhys clambered back into the wreckage (why did he even climb out in the first place...) and walked over to the dead monitor. 

There's gotta be something here. Jack's not in the system anymore and Rhys is without his tech, but Rhys didn't have the latter when he first started at Hyperion and the former would only hinder, so he should, theoretically, be able to do something if he could just find...

Something. Yeah.  _Great plan, there, Rhys._

Well... if he finds an access somewhere, like - Rhys doesn't know. Regardless, what Rhys  _does_ know is that this has to be the remains of Jack's office - considering the statue that tried to kill him (even in stone form, Jack was out for his blood) and the monitors and the  _fucking_ 'Jack in'  _goddamn pun machine that injected the bastard right back into his brain earlier and made him have to get rid of his only advantages._

Gah. Bastard. 

Rhys did eventually find what he was looking for - kind of. Among the rubble, Jack's desk could be found (it took Rhys  _forever..._ maybe he'd gotten a little dependent on his echo-eye...) and thank everything ever, thank the fact that Jack was a ridiculous, rich  _asshole,_ the thing had been sturdy enough to survive the crash. 

The same couldn't be said for most of the objects in the drawer - but as is always the case, Rhys found what he was looking for in the last drawer he checked. 

"Oh, oh yes yes -" Rhys babbled - you know, he might  _actually_ have a concussion - great, what... literally the best time to have his first concussion.

Just...  _the best._

Anyway - Rhys clutched at the datapad. It wasn't the most useful thing in the world in its current state, but contrary to Jack's belief, Rhys wasn't completely stupid. He couldn't have gotten as far as he had if he was, okay, and he knew a thing or two about computers that didn't require the use of his tech to do. 

He could get this thing able to hack and to scan, and that's all he needs. Right now. Later, he can check it for a map. 

... Hopefully, it'll have a map. Considering Jack's seeming obsession with Pandora, it  _should_ have a map.

(oh please let it have a map-)

* * *

 

* * *

"Sasha," Rhys greets. 

"Before you ask," Sasha says, "Yes, my arm is killing me, and also, before Fiona vetos this - I'd rather a replacement than wait for it to be fixed."

"Wait - what?" Rhys asks. "You, uh, you know we don't know any doctors, right?"

"You've got one," Sasha points out. 

"Right, but I already had the wiring," Rhys says. "The wiring - this was very, and I mean  _very_ experimental. We might, and I mean  _might_ have some of the data from Helios on what they did exactly, but as far as I know, at least out of all the Atlas people we've got not a single proper doctor."

"Shame," Sasha says. 

"Look," Rhys sighs and lowers his voice. "Look, if you can find a doctor who won't mess this up - I don't know, maybe you'll be lucky and one of Vaughn's people will be one of the ones that worked on me - I'll get hold of an arm for you," Rhys says. "But I also don't want Fiona to kill me, so..."

Sasha smiles at him, and Rhys returns that, if more tentative.

"Thanks," Sasha says. "So long as it's cool. And a safe prototype."

"No problem," Rhys says. "We've got some stuff in the works, anyway. Not like I've had the same arm for three years, after all," He chuckles, nervously. 

Sasha nods then returns her gaze to the loot.

"There's a lot of stuff in here," she says. "Find anything interesting?"

"Money, some shields, weapons, 'class mods', whatever they are - and some grenades." Rhys says, "Which are thankfully disassembled."

" _COMs,_ " Sasha says, almost reverently. "These things go for a pretty penny to the right person, especially if they're purple."

"Lucky for us, they're all purple, or so far I've found," Rhys says.

"Awesome," Sasha grins. "... What do they do, exactly?" Rhys asks, awkwardly.

"You've never heard of them?" Sasha asks. "Wasn't my department," Rhys says, honestly. 

"Yeah," Sasha sighs, "They got... rarer, over the years. Back before all this, they were everywhere, back when Hollow Point wasn't a complete shithole... at least, according to Felix," Sasha says, mirthlessly, then sighs. 

"Well," She smiles at him, the moment of reflection over. "There are some 660s in here, and those are  _definitely_ mine. The ones I don't keep..." Sasha hesitates, then shrugs. "I guess I'll give them to you."

"How thoughtful," Rhys smiles.

"So that you can reverse engineer them and make newer, better ones, now that Dahl and basically every other company has gone down the drain and there's nothing left here to manufacture anything," Sasha says, honestly, then smiles at him. "It's a win-win."

Rhys shrugs. "Seems so," He agrees. Sasha smiles at him, properly, and Rhys can't help but smile back.

"y'know," Rhys says, suddenly bold - "I didn't get to say this earlier, but - you look... you look nice," He says, lamely, his moment of bravery forgotten.

Sasha softens, slightly. "You don't look so bad yourself," Sasha says. "Did you always have tattoos, or...?"

"I wore ties," Rhys says, honestly. "You couldn't see them under the collar, not properly."

Sasha nods, and at that moment Fiona returns with the rest of their group... and the new medium-sized robot Rhys remembers seeing a poster for back in Old Haven.

He can tell why the guy got mixed reviews.

Luckily, Claptrap appears content to be quiet for now, so Rhys turns his attention away from the newcomer. 

"So," Rhys starts and looks around at the others.

"... what next?"

* * *

* * *

 After the monster was gone, and Fiona had raked her eyes over the far-off ground for the fifteenth time, looking for any sign of Gortys, Sasha called her from the top of the cliff.

Fiona's hat was gone, and for once she couldn't care less. Screw the damn hat, she'd just - she'd just  _shot,_ and Rhys was probably - and Scooter  _was -_

"Fiona!" She heard again, and Fiona snapped herself out of it. 

"Yeah?" She called back, already making her way up the precarious rock face.

"We need to go," Sasha says. 

"I'm so glad you're okay," Fiona says instead of agreeing, because she hadn't had a chance to, back when Sasha showed up to help her with the rocket. "I thought - He told me you were -"

"Finch was an idiot," Sasha interrupts her. 

"I killed him," Fiona says. "After everything, he deserved it," Sasha states, matter-of-fact, after a moment of pause.

"Also, he pretended I was dead to get at you, I mean, seriously?" Sasha shakes her head, and Fiona lets out a shaky not-laugh. 

"Yeah," Fiona nods and walks towards Sasha. "What a douche." She says, shakiness near gone. 

"... We really do need to get out of here," Sasha says. "August is nearly dead, Gortys is gone, so far as we know, Rhys and Vaughn are dead -" Fiona didn't miss the tightness in Sasha's voice when she said Rhys' name, but she wasn't going to say anything about it yet.

Enough time hadn't passed. 

"- and we're... back where we started," Sasha concluded.

"So we go back to where this started?" Fiona asks. "Back home?"

"And move on with our lives." Sasha agrees, and she doesn't sound - well. Nobody's happy right now. Out of all the people to get through this, and it had to be them and  _August?_ That backstabbing asshole? 

... To be fair, they conned him first, but still. At least he kind of came through in the end. 

"... Let's get going, then," Fiona says. This vault hunting business - she could... it's something Fiona could see herself doing, but it's just...

Somehow, conning is safer. At least she knows the kind of prices people will put on her head for that. 

(The prices that the people she cares about  _won't_ pay. People. Person. She's down to only one person, now.)

* * *

The datapad isn't the only thing Rhys finds in the wreckage of Jack's office. 

"Huh." Jack must have had some serious protections on this stuff - it wasn't like Rhys was in the office when the lockdown happened, after all, so he hadn't been there to see if some high-tech protective... wall, or something, rolled down over his winnings. In all honesty, the fact that all of Jack's prized trophies (yes, even the goatee) survived wasn't that surprising. 

The thing was open already as if someone had gone through it, but the only thing missing was the gun - which, oh, that wasn't worrying _at all_ \- but Rhys couldn't focus on that.

The sword wouldn't be... great, but maybe he could work with it. If he knew what it was, aside from a sword. Well, Rhys figured he was already screwed, so he picked up the sword anyway.

Nothing happened, thankfully, but Rhys didn't exactly have anything to carry it with. 

Well...

Rhys sighed and undid his tie, from which he made the least secure, most makeshift... holder-thing for the weapon, because he needed this thing to  _not die out here in the Pandoran desert,_ so he made that because honestly, a tie was stupid. Who wore a tie out here? It could get grabbed, caught, it could be used to strangle him - 

Rhys hadn't made the best clothing decisions over the past few - however long, but he's going to have to do better. 

Firstly, though...

Rhys picks up Jack's deed to Atlas. Well, Jack's dead now, and there's no reason not to take it.

So. Rhys owns Atlas, now. Huh. That...

Could be useful. 

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys owns Atlas now, Sasha knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very short but I'm just trying to get back into this. I'll be replaying the game soon exactly the way I played it last time so I can refresh my memory from like, over a year ago, so, see you then?

The only Atlas building Rhys knew of was the one they'd fought in, and since that was a no-go he needed the map on the datapad - because thank  _god_ and all the stars above, there  _was_ a map (thank Jack's fucking obsessive asshole nature) - to find it. 

Which was all good. It wasn't that hard to hack the datapad- he'd already done it, in fact. The map on it was about as good a quality as you can get because it was  _Jack's..._

And it wasn't the only thing on the datapad. 

But Rhys wasn't about to read Jack's personal files. Jack had access to Rhys' head for a long time, and it would, therefore, be payback; reading all his private writings, but...

Well. Rhys is too... curious, to  _not_ look. He just - can't, yet. 

Rhys sighed and lowered the datapad. He hadn't found a bag of any form, nor any non-half-destroyed clothes, so he was... pretty stuck for how to carry it around with him without losing the use of his only arm. 

He could really use the money they'd gathered. And one of those machines that he could get both a new arm and new clothes from, but... he'd just have to make do, for now, since he had neither. 

Rhys left the wreckage, since there was nothing of value left there except for it's, well, entire self (Jack had had it built, after all; all the materials used were  _expensive as hell,_ but Rhys can't exactly lug around part of Helios with him, so he'll have to leave it), and looked around the immediate area. A few other bits and pieces of Helios had fallen here, too; a few offices, a bedroom, yadda-yadda, et cetera et cetera. 

Well. At least there was a bedroom. Bedrooms, you see, tended to have dressers, which, in turn, tended to have  _clothes._

Rhys had run around looking like a Hyperion employee for a long time. He could do it for a bit longer. 

Thankfully, clothes had survived the fall and the impact - men's, also, thankfully. Just a shirt and some slacks, and a jacket, but that was enough. They were just a little big, but nothing awkward or uncomfortable or about to fall off, so that was fine, too. 

It was  _fine._

Rhys got changed very quickly, then re-equipped the makeshift strap for his sword. He carefully folded up and pocketed the deed to Atlas, and then also carefully, with another tie he'd found, strapped the datapad around him, using the belt-loops in the trousers.

"Alright," Rhys said to himself. "Now. Atlas."

* * *

 

Getting home wasn't going to be easy, Fiona knew. August was injured, and Sasha was obviously not feeling too great, and Fiona - 

Fiona was fine. She had to be.

Fiona didn't look back into the vehicle as she drove, ever, just kept her eyes looking out of the windshield. They were going to need to stop, eventually, for food and drink, to get medical supplies for August and themselves, and to rest. 

But not yet. 

" _Fiona?"_

"Fiona," Sasha said, firmly. Fiona jolted in her seat, then looked over at her sister.

"Let me drive for a while," Sasha said.

"You need rest," Fiona replied, looking back out over the desert laid before them. The vast, open expanse... that would take too long to cross. Too long to find their way home.

"So do you," Sasha returned, carefully. "Come on, Fi. Let me drive."

Fiona hesitated but nodded, and the two sisters switched places.

"Two hours," Fiona demanded. "We'll swap back in two hours."

"Okay," Sasha agreed, probably lying through her teeth. Fiona sighed, then walked over to the couch and lay down. 

She did need rest, Fiona knew, but she couldn't sleep.

She couldn't - she couldn't...

Sleep... 

* * *

"So. Atlas, huh?" Sasha asked.

"Yeah," Rhys looked over to her. "Took the deed from Jack's office when we crashed."

"Payback, huh?" Sasha smiled. "What's it like, owning a company?"

"Different to working for Hyperion, that's for sure," Rhys said, after a moment. He really thought about her question, because it wasn't something he'd properly contemplated before. It wasn't something he really liked to think about, all that much, because - well.

Jack ran a company, too. But, like, completely terribly. Hyperion was a  _mess._

"It's... I mean, it's good. Helping rebuild Pandora after everything Hyperion did to it, trying to - fix some of the things that went wrong even without their help." Rhys looked over to Sasha. "I don't know. We're still building up. Haven't done too much yet, mostly just fixed up water supplies."

"That's great." Sasha smiled. "And weaponry?" 

Rhys laughed. "A whole department," He promised, and she grinned. 

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Will I continue this? Maybe.


End file.
